I'm
back from a very
productive week at the 2017
NamesCon conference in Las
Vegas. While there I heard about
a remarkable number of new company
and product launches, personnel
changes and other industry

developments. I came
home with a list of nearly 20 press
releases and story ideas that I
couldn't get to while the show was
underway and I was focused almost
around the clock on covering the
conference itself for you. Now that
I'm back, I'm looking to sharing
those stories with you over the next three
or four
weeks.

Solomon
AmoakoVice President, Channel
ManagementMMX.CO

I'll
start today with some
news I was especially
happy to hear about.
That was an
announcement from one
of the leading new
gTLD registry
operators, MMX
(formerly known as Minds
+ Machines - the
administrator of .vip,
.law, .fashion
and .miami to
name just a few), that
they had appointed
domain industry
veteran Solomon
Amoako to the
company’s senior
leadership team.
Solomon, who is one of
the most personable
and enthusiastic
people I know,
fills the
newly-created role of
Vice President,
Channel Management, at
MMX. He is responsible
for the
company's sales
operations in the
Americas and Europe,
with a special focus
on accelerating the
company’s commitment
to
partnership-building
and premium sales
activity.

MMX
CEO Toby Hall
said, “Solomon
brings a broad and
valuable perspective
to the MMX team. More
importantly, he shares
the same vision for
the Group as our
entire team does –
that we succeed
when our partners
succeed.”

where
he led business
development, account
management and
brokerage teams.
He also served as Vice
President of Business
Development for the Rightside
Group, and
Director of Global
Sales & Account
Management at the
wholesale Internet
services company, Tucows.

Solomon
said, “I’ve been
an admirer of MMX
since the company’s
2016 restructure. MMX
has repeatedly
demonstrated to the
industry that it is
serious about
partnering, and over
recent weeks I’ve
seen that the entire
MMX organization is
singularly focused on
partnering for
success. In
particular, the solid
work MMX is putting
into end-user
education is
exemplary. The
approach MMX is taking
is the best I’ve
seen at any domain
registry, and I’m
enormously proud to
join the team.”

Amoako's
appointment
coincided with
another
announcement
from MMX - a rebooting
of their Premium
Domain Program
that includes
the complete elimination
of premium
renewal prices
for all
premium
domains sold
from January
6, 2017.

CEO
Toby Hall
said,
“MMX is
committed to
delivering the
most domain-investor-friendly
premium name
programs in
the industry.
We started the
process of
rebooting our
strategy in
July last
year, when we
alerted our
many registrar
partners that
100% of our
premium names
sold after
January 6, 2017 would
have standard,
General
Availability
renewal
prices. As an
added
incentive to
strengthening
our existing
partnerships
and building
new ones, we
are likewise revisiting
the price
tiering of
all our
premium
inventory
across the
portfolio. The
upshot of our
new Premium
Program is
that all
registrants
will
ultimately
have access to
much more
affordable
purchase
opportunities
with sharply
reduced
carrying
costs.”

The
MMX Premium
Domain Program
applies to all
MMX
wholly-owned
TLDs in
general
availability,
and will apply
to all TLDs in
the MMX
portfolio
still to
launch –
perhaps most
notably .boston
which is
expected to
debut later
this year.

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Lowdown, so please email editor@dnjournal.comwith any interesting information you might have. If possible,
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